Processing of continuous fiber reinforced ceramic composites for ultra high temperature applications using polymer precursors

Monolithic ceramic materials are currently being used for ultra high temperature applications such as hypersonic vehicles, missiles and rockets where the materials experience extremely high temperatures (often > 2000°C). Ceramic materials offer superior chemical and physical stability at higher temperatures compared to metals and polymers. One of the major challenges with the monolithic ceramics is their tendency to fail catastrophically. Especially in larger structures where the probability of process induced or in-service induced flaws increases, the chances of catastrophic failure also increase. One way of significantly improving the toughness of these materials is by introducing continuous fibers. The development of commercial low viscosity polymer ceramic precursors (PCPs) such as SMP-10 provided new opportunities to manufacture continuous fiber reinforced ceramic composites (CFCCs). PCPs behave like polymers at low temperatures and transform into ceramics upon heating to high temperatures. PCPs enable the adaptation of several well-established polymer processing techniques and results in high purity and higher reproducibility at lower costs. In the present work, SMP-10 from Starfire Systems has been used to manufacture SiC-ZrB2 CFCCs using low cost vacuum bagging process. Samples loaded with ZrB2 are fabricated using a polymer infiltration and pyrolysis process. The microstructure is investigated using scanning electron microscopy and density analysis. The mechanical performance of the manufactured samples was evaluated using flexure tests.